Unexpectedness

I opened up my mailbox while on the phone with Beth last night and saw a card from my Grandpa. I was all ooo and yays. I stuffed the letter in my side bag to protect it from the rain and ran into my house with my groceries.

I forgot about the card until this morning when I was pushing my morning breakfast into the side bag.

I plopped into the recliner and felt it wobble forward and backward as I opened up the card. It was a cute front that we're used to from all of our grandparents.

I giggled at first remembering the awesome card Rach had sent me for Halloween, but as I opened it I saw that twenty dollar bill fall quickly into my lap and read the inside part of the card, the generic poem lilted on "Wishing you life's sweetest moments filled with smiles and cheer, for a birthday so memorable it lasts throughout the year!" I smiled and thought that my Grandpa sent my birthday card an almost two full weeks before my birthday to make sure it got to me on time, but then I focused on his neat penmanship under the Happy Birthday.

"You are sweeter than the strawberries."

I started crying.

Through sniffles and tears I read the rest "Hope you will enjoy your birthday. Love you, Grandpa G"

Even right now I'm misting up as I check to see how he wrote it. Earlier I had told Beth when I retrieved the letter that I was excited to have Grandpa's address to hopefully start writing him letters.

Interesting how one sentence can make your heart melt and remember when you were younger and your Grandparents let you stay up late to watch TV.

Or how you would lay on your stomach feeling the carpet beneath you and hear the easy squeak of their recliners as they read the paper.

But most of all how one simple sentence can make you feel so loved.

Ceasing Ramble.

I missed it!

I missed National Coming Out Day!

I'm a bit upset as I was excited to blow up balloons and celebrate it in my office hopefully encouraging a conversation with the students that I saw that day.

On a bright side though, I did have a lovely conversation with my conservative Christian student worker, B.

B likes to talk about her classes with me and openly debate, respectfully!, things that she is working out in her head. She bopped into my office showing me the book for her new half-term course. She giggled as she waved about the printouts that were hole-punched and kept together with a paper clip. I asked he how she liked the class. She crinkled her nose up and said that it felt a bit rudimentary compared to her World Diversity and America course she had previously taken. She waxed poetic about the professor and it sounded like a class that would have affected me immensely had I taken it in undergraduate studies.

Which she then bounced into her current course Human Sexuality after she talked about LGBT panel that had spoken in World Diversity and America as a comparison to the panel from Queers & Allies that came to her Human Sexuality course. She found it informative and only had one qualm that the panel and the other students became very argumentative when the question was brought up of "is being LGBT a choice?"

She said that many started lambasting the religious question, as they felt it was condeming those who identified as LGBT.

She spoke up about Christianity and from her claming up it sounded like she was yelled at for doing so, but the thing that I loved learning in talking to her. She believes that being LGBT is not a choice, that it is something within. I didn't dig more, but she and I do talk about how being a Christian and being a "Christian" are different aspects.

A lot of what I see in the media and arguements are from those who are "Christian" who use quotes for a sort of propoganda, but don't have a time when they questioned the verses that they spout out (as B did) and actually see the Bible as a form of literature that needs to be seen through each eyes.

B and I left the conversation with the words that I used to sum up what I thought she felt needed to be said, no one is the judge of anyone else. Whomever, or whatever higher power (or lack thereof) is what will determine how you are in the afterlife.

Live your life with respect of the human, animal, or even space that you encounter.

Hear that Domino's?

Ceasing Ramble.

Friend, How You Have Disappointed Me So

I worked for Domino's.

I loved Domino's.

I always made all my friends order Domino's.

I think those days might have ended.

So Nik and I were hungry on Sunday and in the sadness of not getting Beth to bring us food because she was working diligently on her Halloween costume, which at one point I plan on posting ridiculous amounts of pictures about, we decided to lazily call Domino's.

Nik ordered an order of hot wings. I ordered an order of chicken kickers that arrived with a little less kick than usual...



As you can see the normal ten piece chicken kicker order has actually been five pieces that are cut in half to equal ten pieces. I called and informed them that it looked like my chicken kickers had been, in fact, cut in half. I was put on hold. When they picked the phone back up they said that they cut kickers in half when they are "too big". I notified them that I used to work at Domino's and never did this in preparation. They offered to send another order, but couldn't promise that they wouldn't be cut in half as well.

I hung up the phone and stared at my sliced kickers and decided I needed to write a letter to Domino's. I'll update with the response, they hopefully will give soon.

On the part of the Domino's team they did bring another order and it was cut as well. These were a bit more soggy so I know that it was taken out on another run for the driver and they stopped by before heading to the store a mere two blocks away.

I've never been so disappointed by Domino's in the years of service, but this was a downer.

So if anyone else has had this happen... ever with Domino's please let me know. I feel like it is a 'store policy' only and that it is simply to keep down the kicker prep to save money and increase profit margins from the truck order.

But, I only worked there once, a "long time" ago and maybe things are different now.

Ceasing Ramble.

Edited to Add: If you were wondering Nik's wings were not cut in half because one of them was deemed "too big".